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Tuesday, July 25, 2017

Mental
Health America has found that depression ranks among the top three
workplace problems for employee assistance professionals, coming in third
behind family crisis and stress. Despite this issue, Mental Health America finds
that depressed employees often don’t seek treatment due to confidentiality
concerns and fears of the affect their diagnosis will have on their job. Ben
Congleton, CEO of Olark, made headlines when praising an employee for taking
time to focus on her mental health. Building on Congleton’s congenial gesture,
senior leadership should ensure that all employees mind their mental well-being
and take the time they need to stay healthy. With this in mind, here are three
key steps employers can take to make a measurable difference in improving the
mental health of their workforce:

1.Identify a need for mental health services
and address those needs. A crucial first step companies can take to assess
the health of their workforce is to identify the population in need of
assistance—learning who they are, how many there are, and what their pain
points are. Sheetz, a privately held convenience store chain, saw the need for
integrating mental health services into their healthcare plan after costs for
mental healthcare continued to increase. Bill Young, director of total rewards,
talent acquisition and risk management at Sheetz, noted that, “three of our top
25 prescriptions relate to behavioral health. It was clear that this needed our
attention and that our traditional telephonic EAP solution was underutilized.” Coupling
this with the fact that behavioral health was identified as the second leading
condition for intervention behind musculoskeletal issues, Sheetz added mental
health services as part of their comprehensive onsite health management program
in 2014.

2.Offer a convenient, uplifting way for
employees and their families to receive help that eliminates stigma. Nothing
is more important than meeting your employees where they are, especially when
the issues they are facing are sensitive in nature. After identifying the need
for mental health services, Sheetz launched a pilot program to address rising
behavioral health concerns and improve overall participation in EAP programs. Confidential,
free, onsite counseling was offered on a part-time basis for employees and
dependents but quickly turned into a full-time service and later expanded to
their distribution facility in North Carolina. By offering convenient and confidential
counseling that builds trustworthiness, employees and their families are more
receptive to receiving mental healthcare and therefore more likely to be
treated than to continue to suffer in silence.

3.Motivate employees to take stock of their
mental health from the top down. Full integration of mental health services
via onsite health centers does not come overnight and relies heavily on senior
leadership carrying the conversation. As we found with Ben Congleton’s words of
encouragement, a personal reminder to take care of your health goes a long way.
At Sheetz, employees are also made aware of the mental health program by way of
newsletter stories, departmental meetings, lunch-and-learns, and executive
support. Leaders like Bill Young will note that, “it is the right thing to do,”
but beyond being the right thing to do—these services produce results. Seventy
percent of employees require no further referrals after completing prescribed
sessions, and the program has contributed to patient satisfaction rates averaging
98 percent overall. Of those needing a referral for more specific treatment,
the counselors are able to assist them in providing the appropriate local
resources.

An important conversation has started that we cannot afford
to let die out and must act upon. By identifying those who need assistance,
meeting them at the point of care, and motivating all to see the importance in
their mental health starts with those who are willing to lead the conversation
for actionable change.

Jerry Ford is the CEO of
Marathon Health, a provider of onsite
health centers that
enable employers to optimize the health of their workforce and business..
Ford spent 15 years as vice president of operations at IDX Systems Corporation,
where he was responsible for 300 large and complex healthcare delivery system
customers.

Wednesday, July 19, 2017

Reaching
Up and Out: How Millennial Managers Can Effectively Enable Older Workers

By Rishav Gupta, CEO, iCoachFirst

If
you look to Mark Zuckerberg for management inspiration and prefer to give your
direct reports shout-outs on a company-wide Slack channel, odds are you are a
millennial manager.

Althoughmillennials
may now be a majority in the overall workforce, they’re
still coming into their own as managers. Only about 28 percent of millennials
are now managers, but they have big plans for the future: research from Deloitte
shows that 53 percent dream of being the leader or most senior executive at their
current company. As those dreams become reality, more millennials will manage older
and more experienced employees. After all, baby boomers and Gen Xers still make
up about 30 and 35 percent of the workforce, respectively.

Rest
assured there are ways to overcome the challenges that come with managing older
workers, including having tough conversations with employees who have been in
the workforce for 30 or more years. Here are some strategies for building a
better rapport and enabling employees’ top performance:

Ditch the
Desire to Be Authoritative

One
of the worst ways to garner respect is to demand it. Instead, be a leader who builds
a foundation based on trust, teamwork, integrity and transparency. This type of
leadership coaching is not only more effective, but it also comes naturally to
many millennials, who seek it out in their own managers and mentors.

While
everyone’s coaching mindset is unique, the qualities that most employees look
for in a coach are remarkably similar. Employees want leaders and coaches who set
clear benchmarks, provide training, give regular and immediate feedback and
help employees find purpose in the workplace. It's also important to align coaching
goals to the goals of the broader organization, so that the goals you set for
your team align with the vision and direction of the organization.

Tap
Technology Selectively

Your
position as a member of the first generation of digital natives most likely weaves
into how you approach work and collaborate with colleagues. But instead of
firing off a quick IM, try stopping by an employee’s desk to discuss the
project at hand. It will go a long way for those who entered the workforce
before the days of hyperconnectivity and value more personal, face-to-face
relationships.

Many older employees are surprisingly open to embracing
tools so that they can share knowledge, garner feedback and put forth new ideas.
To leverage the full power of social and mobile collaboration tools, ensure those
tools can be integrated into existing workflow channels so they are not viewed
as disruptive and make feedback a two-way street. When recognition and feedback
flows in every direction, employees stay engaged, focused and productive.

Be
Flexible Varied generational views and attributes means you’ll need to be
flexible in managing a blended workforce and adapt to different work styles. This
includes recognizing your own desire for flexibility—for example, working
remotely to accommodate personal commitments may be new to your direct reports
who are accustomed to a more traditional work schedule.

One of the best ways to ensure everyone is comfortable with different
work styles is to get aligned around the same set of goals. These goals should
be agreed upon by all team members and revisited regularly to remain relevant
in the face of evolving business realities. It is your job to help employees
see the link between daily work and overall goal achievement, which is best
done through a mix of continuous micro-conversations and check-ins that ensure
transparency, as well as tools to provide longer lines of sight into
progress.

As a millennial, you have already been part of the complete
upending of the American workforce as it was long known. That transformation
will continue as you take on increased leadership roles, and increasingly, it
will be your responsibility to not only manage performance, but also to enable
it.

Tuesday, July 11, 2017

The U.S. healthcare market has been short on solutions to
combat the ever-increasing costs of healthcare and its effect on rapidly rising
health insurance premiums. But, challenging as it may be to believe, there are
some bright spots in healthcare—one being Accountable Care Organizations (ACO).

The stated goals of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) are to make
health insurance more affordable to millions of Americans who lack health
insurance coverage, to expand Medicaid to cover millions more Americans, and
finally, to support innovative medical care delivery systems that drive down
costs. This last goal has resulted in a number of notable innovations, in
particular the ACO.

ACOs effectiveness in yielding favorable patient outcomes
and cost savings make them a successful solution for the commercial marketplace,
specifically through their leverage of
three primary components: patient outcome-based financial incentives, patient quality
improvement strategies, and data analytics. Hospitals, medical groups,
pharmacies and often insurance carriers partner to improve patient outcomes
through shared data, goals, and financial incentives created through the shared
savings.

The most successful, predominant ACO in the U.S. is Kaiser
Permanente. Kaiser has existed for decades and has established hospitals,
medical groups and pharmacies within its own facilities. Kaiser operates by a
proprietary electronic data system, making patient data more accessible,
accurate, and easy-to-analyze. it also operates as the insurance carrier,
selling through the employer group marketplace, state exchanges, and direct to
individuals.

Motivated by the opportunity to reduce patient healthcare
costs and improve profits, ACOs work within a shared data system that closely
measures patient care and quality metrics. As patients move throughout the ACO
network, from their primary care physician to a specialist, to an outpatient
surgery center, hospital and pharmacy, their data remains accessible to each
provider in real time. The result is improved
efficiency and the ability to provide effective information to providers regarding
effective approaches to disease management, rehabilitative methods, and
comprehensive care strategies.

ACOs are also developing teams to support transition and
ongoing care needs, which reduces hospital readmissions and rehabilitation
times.

An example of a successful ACO in the Southern California
marketplace is the Anthem Blue Cross Vivity ACO. Vivity includes hospitals and
medical groups in Ventura, Los Angeles, and Orange counties. Some of the
providers within the Vivity network are UCLA Health, Cedars-Sinai, Dignity Health,
Huntington Hospital, Citrus Valley Health Partners and MemorialCare Health
Systems. Each entity within the provider network is integrated with a focus on
improved patient outcomes at a lower cost and sharing pertinent data for improved
patient care management.

So, what effect will the ACO’s success have on the employer-based
group insurance marketplace?

The insurance carriers are betting on this model to produce
healthcare cost savings and, by extension, group health insurance premium savings—an
advantage to employers and employees alike. They say that their ACO provider network
benefits plans are delivering premium savings in the range of 8-12 percent when
compared to similar plan designs within their traditional provider networks

In an era in which employers’ cost containment options have
been limited to reducing benefit plan levels and cost-shifting contributions,
deductibles, and coinsurance amounts to their employees, it’s clearly time for
a better option. ACOs can yield healthcare outcome advantages to patients and
deliver a quality provider network option at a reduced premium amount. If the ACO
model can sustain delivering these positive results, there is no doubt the employer
group marketplace will take advantage of this option— allowing it to become a
primary offering in most employers’ benefit programs.

Nathan Ackeret has nearly 10 years of
experience in consulting with companies of all sizes on health benefits and
healthcare reform compliance. As the vice president and managing director of Burnham
Benefits’ Los Angeles office, Ackeret is a successful sales leader with more
than 15 years of experience achieving top sales performances.